While some premises provide the perfect blank canvas to realise your start-ups new home, others might present all kinds of limitations – while at the same time adding a flair of their own. Recent years have seen an exponential rise in cafes and micro-breweries opening up under railway arches in London’s up and coming northern and eastern Boroughs.
Yet last year, one of London’s most beautiful and recognisable restaurants and art spaces, the Wapping Project closed its doors after 14 years. Rising house prices in the area have been accompanied by a decline in its neighbours' tolerance of late openings and arty riff-raff, and as a result, it has had to close. The Wapping Project was located in a disused hydraulic power station. Much of the original machinery remained in place. During the day, light would stream through the tall windows, illuminating the cathedral-like spaces. At night, the space was largely candlelit, the generators and pumps looming like sleeping animals in the shadows. A series of unusual spaces from the basement to the top of the roof were converted into exhibition areas that showed well curated, exceptional art pieces. The Wapping Project was indistinguishable from its premises, and its new life as an entertainment venue fed very much off its past as a power station.
The Wapping Project, London
There are countless other examples similar to this on: Our current hunger for pop-up shops and bars, too, plays on the unlikely juxtaposition of different functions. This summer, a pop up bar on Bethnal Geen Road served cocktails in an old hardware shop. Which makes us wonder whether maybe the time has come for a cocktail bar that sells drill bits and wall plugs....
Hackney Hardware, London
The lesson to learn from these spaces is to look carefully at the existing condition, to not discard what is there lightheartedly - to tread carefully rather than trample on the past. Your new business can only benefit from the associations this will evoke.